Violence research has identified demographic subgroups—distinguished by age, race and gender—having widely varying rates of offending. According to the demographic hypothesis used in criminology, as these segments grow or contract in proportionate size, the aggregate offending rate tends to rise or fall as a result. In this article, we use data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports from 1976 through 1999 to assess the extent to which demographic change can account for the massive drop in homicide rates that occurred during the 1990s, and then attempt to develop a demographically based forecast of future trends in murder.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Austin, J., & Cohen, R. L. (1996, March 1). Why are crime rates declining: An NCCD briefing report. San Francisco: National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
2.
Baumer, E., Lauritsen, J. L., Rosenfeld, R., & Wright, R. (1998). The influence of crack cocaine on robbery, burglary, and homicide rates: A cross-city, longitudinal analysis. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, 35, 316-340.
3.
Bennett, W. J., DiIulio, J. J., & Walters, J. P. (1996). Body count: Moral poverty and how to win America's war against crime and drugs. New York: Simon & Schuster.
4.
Biden, J. (1990, July 31). Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on homicide trends in the United States. Congressional Record. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
5.
Blumstein, A. (1993). Making rationality relevant: The American Society of Criminology 1992 presidential address. Criminology, 31, 1-16.
6.
Blumstein, A. (1995). Youth violence, guns, and the illicit-drug industry. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 86, 10-36.
7.
Blumstein, A., Cohen, J., Roth, J. A., & Visher, C. A. (1986). Criminal careers and “career criminals.” Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
8.
Blumstein, A., & Nagin, D. S. (1975). Analysis of arrest rates for trends in criminality. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 9, 221-227.
9.
Blumstein, A., & Rosenfeld, R. (1999). Trends in rates of violence in the U.S.A. Studies on Crime & Crime Prevention, 8, 139-168.
10.
Blumstein, A., & Wallman, J. (Eds.). (2000). The crime drop in America. New York: Cambridge University Press.
11.
Butterfield, F. (1997, June 8). Scared straight: The wisdom of children who have known too much. The New York Times, sec. 4, p. 1.
12.
Chilton, R. (1986). Age, sex, race, and arrest trends for 12 of the nation's largest central cities. In J. M. Byrne & R. J. Sampson (Eds.), The social ecology of crime (pp. 102-115). New York: Springer-Verlag.
13.
Chilton, R. (1987). Twenty years of homicide and robbery in Chicago: The impact of the city's changing racial and age composition, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 3, 195-214.
14.
Chilton, R. (1991). Urban crime trends and criminological theory. Criminal Justice Research Bulletin. Huntsville, TX: Sam Houston State University.
15.
Chilton, R., & Spielberger, A. (1971). Is delinquency increasing? Age structure and the crime rate. Social Forces, 49, 487-493.
16.
Cohen, L. E., & Land, K. C. (1987). Age structure and crime: Symmetry versus asymmetry and the projection of crime rates through the 1990s. American Sociological Review, 52, 170-183.
17.
Cook, P., & Laub, J. H. (1998). The unprecedented epidemic in youth violence. In M. Tonry & M. Moore (Eds.), Youth violence, crime and justice: An annual review of research (pp. 27-64). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
18.
Cork, D. (1999). Examining space-time interaction in city-level homicide data: Crack markets and the diffusion of guns among youth. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 15, 379-406.
19.
DiIulio, J. (1995, November 27). The coming of the super-predators. Weekly Standard, p. 23.
20.
Farrington, D. P., & Langan, P. (1992). Changes in crime and punishment in England and America in the 1980s. Justice Quarterly, 9, 5-46.
21.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.d., published annually). Crime in the United States. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
22.
Ferdinand, T. N. (1970). Demographic shifts and criminality: An inquiry. British Journal of Criminology, 10, 169-175.
23.
Fox, J. A. (1978, February 18). Forecasting crime data: An econometric analysis. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
24.
Fox, J. A. (1995, February 18). Homicide offending patterns, 1976-1993. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, Atlanta, GA.
25.
Fox, J. A. (1996a). Trends in juvenile violence: A report to the United States Attorney General on current and future rates of juvenile offending. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
26.
Fox, J. A. (1996b, September). The calm before the juvenile crime storm. Population Today, pp. 4-5.
27.
Fox, J. A. (1997). Trends in juvenile homicide, 1976-1996: An update of the March 1996 report to the U.S. Attorney General on current and future rates of juvenile violence. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
28.
Fox, J. A. (2000). Demographics and U.S. homicide. In A. Blumstein & J. Wallman (Eds.), The crime drop in America (pp. 288-318). New York: Cambridge University Press.
29.
Grogger, J. (2000). An economic model of recent trends in violence. In A. Blumstein & J. Wallman (Eds.), The crime drop in America (pp. 266-287). New York: Cambridge University Press.
30.
Johnson, B., Golub, A., & Dunlap, E. (2000). The rise and decline of hard drugs, drug markets, and violence in inner-city New York. In A. Blumstein & J. Wallman (Eds.), The crime drop in America (pp. 164-206). New York: Cambridge University Press.
31.
Krauss, C. (1995, July 23). Crime lab: Mystery of New York, the suddenly safer city. The New York Times, sec. 4, p. 1.
32.
Lane, R. (1999). Murder in America: A historian's perspective. In M. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice: An annual review of research (Vol. 25, pp. 191-224). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
33.
Laub, J. H. (1983). Urbanism, race, and crime. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, 20, 183-198.
34.
Lee, G. W. (1984). Are crime rates increasing? A study of the impact of demographic shifts on crime rates in Canada. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 26, 29-41.
35.
Levin, J. (1999, May 7). An effective response to teenage crime is possible. Chronicle of Higher Education, p. 35.
36.
Massey, D. S. (1995). Getting away with murder: Segregation and violent crime in urban America. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 143, 1203-1232.
37.
Maxson, C. (1999). Gang homicide: A review and extension of the literature. In D. Smith & M. Zahn (Eds.), Homicide: A sourcebook of social research (pp. 239-254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
38.
Murphy, L. (1996, May 14). Statement before the Congressional Black Caucus Brain Trust on Juvenile Justice. Congressional Record. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
39.
Nagin, D. S., Farrington, D. P., & Moffitt, T. E. (1995). Life-course trajectories of different types of offenders. Criminology, 33, 111-140.
40.
Nagin, D. S., & Land, K. C. (1993). Age, criminal careers, and population heterogeneity: Specification and estimation of a nonparametric, mixed poisson model. Criminology, 32, 327-362.
41.
Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability. (1996). Review of prison population forecasting in Florida. Tallahassee, FL: Author.
42.
Pampel, F. C., & Williams, K. R. (2000). Intimacy and homicide: Compensating for missing data in the SHR. Criminology, 38, 661-680.
43.
Parker, K. F., & McCall, P. L. (1999). Structural conditions and racial homicide patterns: A look at the multiple disadvantages in urban areas. Criminology, 37, 447-478.
44.
President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. (1967). Task force report: Crime and its impact—An assessment. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
45.
Reiss, A. J., & Roth, J. A. (1993). Understanding and preventing violence. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
46.
Sagi, P. C., & Wellford, C. F. (1968). Age composition and patterns of change in criminal statistics. Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology & Police Science, 59, 29-36.
47.
Sampson, R. J. (1987). Urban black violence: The effect of male joblessness and family disruption. American Journal of Sociology, 93, 348-382.
48.
Sampson, R. J., & Wilson, W. J. (1995). Toward a theory of race, crime, and urban inequality. In J. Hagan & R. D. Peterson (Eds.), Crime and inequality (pp. 37-54). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
49.
Spelman, W. (1994). Criminal incapacitation. New York: Plenum.
50.
Spelman, W. (2000). The limited importance of prison expansion. In A. Blumstein & J. Wallman (Eds.), The crime drop in America (pp. 97-129). New York: Cambridge University Press.
51.
Steffensmeier, D. J., & Harer, M. D. (1991). Did crime rise or fall during the Reagan presidency? The effects of an “aging” U.S. population on the nation's crime rate. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, 28, 330-359.
52.
Steffensmeier, D. J., & Harer, M. D. (1999). Making sense of recent U.S. crime trends, 1980 to 1996/1998: Age composition effects and other explanations. Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, 36, 235-274.
53.
Wellford, C. F. (1973). Age composition and the increase in recorded crime. Criminology, 11, 61-70.
54.
Zimring, F. (1998). American youth violence. New York: Oxford University Press.
